Judge blocks latest version of Trump travel ban

WASHINGTON: A federal judge on Tuesday barred the White House from implementing yet another version of President Donald Trump’s controversial executive order on immigration, hours before it was due to go into full effect.

The decision by US District judge Derrick Watson in Hawaii marked the latest blow to Trump’s long-running efforts to restrict entry of travellers from targeted countries into the US.

Watson said the third rendition of the travel ban — covering people from six mainly Muslim countries, as well as North Korea and some officials from Venezuela — could not be justified under law.

In his decision, Watson wrote the ban “suffers from precisely the same maladies as its predecessor: it lacks sufficient findings that the entry of more than 150 million nationals from six specific countries would be ‘detrimental to the interests of the US’.”

The ruling meant that the Trump administration could again ask the Supreme Court to decide whether his immigration orders were legal.

The newest order was announced last month to replace an expiring 90-day temporary ban on travellers from the Muslimmajority nations of Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen.

The decree removed Sudan from the list, but added Chad and North Korea for full bans and Venezuela for a ban limited to certain classes of officials.

The White House justified the measure as needed to protect US national security, but critics said it appeared virtually the same as the original order of Jan 27. AFP